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The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis (Leptogenesis), is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters, considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is known as the ''Book of Division'' (Ge'ez: መጽሃፈ ኩፋሌ ''Mets'hafe Kufale''). ''Jubilees'' is considered one of the pseudepigrapha by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Churches.〔Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.〕 It was well known to Early Christians, as evidenced by the writings of Epiphanius, Justin Martyr, Origen, Diodorus of Tarsus, Isidore of Alexandria, Isidore of Seville, Eutychius of Alexandria, John Malalas, George Syncellus, and George Kedrenos. The text was also utilized by the Essenes community that originally collected the Dead Sea Scrolls. No complete Hebrew, Greek or Latin version is known to have survived. The ''Book of Jubilees'' claims to present "the history of the division of the days of the Law, of the events of the years, the year-weeks, and the jubilees of the world" as revealed to Moses (in addition to the Torah or "Instruction") by Angels while he was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights.〔Book of Jubilees ("Jublees 1:4" )〕 The chronology given in ''Jubilees'' is based on multiples of seven; the jubilees are periods of 49 years, seven "year-weeks", into which all of time has been divided. ==Manuscripts== Until extensive fragments were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), the only surviving manuscripts of ''Jubilees'' were four complete Ge'ez texts dating to the 15th and 16th centuries, and several quotations by the Church fathers such as Epiphanius, Justin Martyr, Origen as well as Diodorus of Tarsus, Isidore of Alexandria, Isidore of Seville, Eutychius of Alexandria, John Malalas, George Syncellus, and George Kedrenos. There is also a preserved fragment of a Latin translation of the Greek that contains about a quarter of the whole work.〔(''The Book of Jubilees'' ) (Int., tr.), from "The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament", by R. H. Charles. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913〕 The Ethiopic texts, now numbering twenty-seven, are the primary basis for translations into English. Passages in the texts of ''Jubilees'' that are directly parallel to verses in ''Genesis'' do not directly reproduce either of the two surviving manuscript traditions.〔"A minute study of the text shows that it attests an independent form of the Hebrew text of Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus. Thus it agrees with individual authorities such as the Samaritan or the LXX, or the Syriac, or the Vulgate, or the Targum of Onkelos against all the rest. Or again it agrees with two or more of these authorities in opposition to the rest, as for instance with the Massoretic and Samaritan against the LXX, Syriac and Vulgate, or with the Massoretic and Onkelos against the Samaritan, LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate, or with the Massoretic, Samaritan and Syriac against the LXX or Vulgate." R.H. Charles, "Textual affinities", in his introduction to his edition of ''Jubilees'', 1913 ().〕 Consequently, even before the Qumran discoveries, R.H. Charles had deduced that the Hebrew original had used an otherwise unrecorded text for ''Genesis'' and the early chapters of ''Exodus'', one that was independent of either the Masoretic text or the Hebrew text that was the basis for the Septuagint. As the variation among parallel manuscript traditions that are exhibited by the Septuagint compared with the Masoretic text, and which are embodied in the further variants among the Dead Sea Scrolls, demonstrates (according to one historian) that even canonical Hebrew texts did not possess any single 'authorized' manuscript tradition in the first centuries BC.〔Robin Lane Fox, a classicist and historian, discusses these multifarious sources of Old and New Testaments in layman's terms in ''Unauthorized Version'' (1992).〕 However, others write about the existence of three main textual manuscript traditions (namely the Bablyonian, Samarian and Pre-Masoratic "proto" textual traditions). Although the Pre-Masoratic text may have indeed been authoritative back then, arguments can be made for and against this concept.〔Hershel Shanks, a Historian and Archaeological Scholar, provides different articles that explore this issue in great depth - from different experts in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls research, in his book "Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: Biblical Archaeology Review, June 29, 1993"〕 Between 1947 and 1956, approximately 15 Jubilees scrolls were found in five caves at Qumran, all written in Hebrew. The large quantity of manuscripts (more than for any biblical books except for Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Exodus, and Genesis, in descending order) indicates that Jubilees was widely used at Qumran. A comparison of the Qumran texts with the Ethiopic version, performed by James VanderKam, found that the Ethiopic was in most respects an accurate and literalistic translation.〔VanderKam, "Jubilees, Book of" in L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Oxford University Press (2000), Vol. I, p. 435.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Book of Jubilees」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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